Project Passport Renaissance and Reformation – Home School in the Woods Review

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*Originally posted on our homeschool blog, Benoit Academy*

I am so excited to share with you another great history curriculum that we were able to review, HISTORY Through the Ages Project Passport World History Study: Renaissance & ReformationfromHome School in the Woods! This is such a neat way to “travel” through history and really get to know the people and places of yester-year in a fun hands-on study. J14 could not wait to get started on it when I showed her a sneak peek of the different lessons and activities. She is completely obsessed with this time era and I couldn’t get the first lesson printed out fast enough for her!

Project Passport World History Study: Renaissance & Reformation

CD or Download (Mac and PC)

Suggested grades: 3-8

There is so much packed into this activity-based hands-on project but you won’t feel overwhelmed because you will be having so much fun! Project Passport is set up in a way that you will be ‘traveling’ through a certain era. You will make a homemade passport, a working Scrapbook of Sights and lapbook along with many more activities at each “stop”. Also included are eight Dramatized Audio Tours for nearly an hour of listening.

There are a total of 25 “stops”that can be spread throughout 8-12 weeks. Along the way, you will get to see many neat events and meet interesting people of the Renaissance and Reformation! You will learn about their everyday life, art, food, literature and drama, science, exploration, Reformers, war, Henry VIII, the Counter-Reformation and more.

To start out, I sat and looked through the first 5 Stops to see what materials were needed and what needed to be printed. I already had a 3-ring binder so I just printed everything out for those first 5 Stops and then separated each Stop’s activities into their own page protector. I also had old tab dividers with numbers so that made it easier to see where each Stop was. It is suggested in Project Passport that the students each have their own binder while you have your own that would include the Travel Tips, Quick-Stop Itinerary, Teacher Keys and more. Since my oldest works best on her own, I decided to keep everything together in one binder for her to go through herself and work through them. I have not come across any answer keys or such yet that she should not have in hers. When she is completely done with the project we will separate it all the way it should be so we can keep it on a shelf with the rest of our finished projects and lapbooks.

The first Stop had us prepping everything. We made the Passport and J14 drew her self-portrait for it, Travelogue (shaped like luggage), set up the Scrapbook of Sights and the newspaper that will be worked on throughout called the “Renaissance Reporter” as well as the “Snapshot Moments In History” Timeline. J14 also worked on her first lapbook piece that defined “Renaissance”!

The second Stop is where you really start diving into the lessons and learning about Leonardo da Vinci. J14 started working on the newspaper, learned about da Vinci’s art techniques and even used these techniques to make her own art work for the scrapbook! We even had our first Audio Tour: “A Day Trip in Florence”. Each Stop will continue to build on from the last as you keep adding onto your lapbook, Scrapbook and more to eventually end up with a great finished keepsake!

Overall, we are very happy with Project Passport. We have not even come close to finishing this but J14 is having fun with it and continues to work on it. We cannot wait to see what the finished project will be!

There are a few drawbacks though:

Cost: You must buy many supplies if you do not already have them on hand to work on Project Passport. Project Passport World History Study: Renaissance & Reformation costs $33.95 for Download version and $34.95 for CD. This is a nice value for all of the activities and lessons involved BUT stack that together with the cost of supplies and it can come anywhere near $60. Remember, you may already have a bunch of these supplies already. I had to buy cardstock (white AND colored), colored printer paper, glue (sticks and liquid), rubber cement (it is suggested to use double-sided tape for the lapbook but I have always preferred rubber cement when we make ours), and packing tape. These are the basic supplies. There are also more optional ones for different activities such as art/crafts, recipes and more.

Time: It does take time to get each Stop set up, organized, as well as worked through. You need to read through each one to see what is needed and then print it out. I chose to print out the reading and Quick-Stop Itineraries as well so it was all in front of her and we wouldn’t have to get on the PC if we didn’t have to. You, of course, can choose to not do that for less printing. Also, there is a lot of cutting so if your child hates cutting, like mine, you may opt to do that also beforehand. We are lucky enough to have a paper cutter that works for most activities.